On this website, when you critique quintessentially feminist stances on political issues, gender issues, or dating inequality issues, the feminists will be the first to jump down you're throat:
"But that's not what feminism means!"
What's more is that if you rephrase your argument so you're talking about the women who hold these stances, guess what? You're a sexist!
In this take I'm going to:
- define and criticise the conventionally accepted definition of feminism focussing on etymology and history
- explain the reasons we don't need feminism in the west focussing on privileged attitudes of western women and the areas that men are actually more disadvantaged
- defend international feminism - the principle that less privileged women in third world countries DO need their rights defending
1. What's the definition of feminism?
Literally:
the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.
So what's wrong with that? Nothing wrong with equality, right? Also, women are the oppressed sex, therefore we need to defend women to get equality, right?
Well actually, no to both accounts. On the first count, equality is very important but feminists don't actually support equality: they want equal rights but not equal responsibilities for women. This is not true equality. On this account, I am more of a feminist than the feminists because I want to see truly liberated women with equal rights and equal responsibilities, not these pampered, precocious brats that feminism is becoming responsible for.
On the second account, yes it is true that historically women have been oppressed. They did not have the right to vote (although men were also drafted which they did not have to experience) and they did not have the right to choose their husbands (although this went for men too: they were forced into arranged marriages). Regardless of what you think about those historical circumstances, many changes and much progress has been made towards securing basic female rights such as the right to vote, the right to marry whomever a female desires, the right to use contraception, the right to have an abortion and even the right to equal pay - or at least we have closed down on wage discrimination. Without these basic rights, we cannot truly say men and women are equal.
So now we are left with a situation where actually, men and women are roughly equal. However, feminists would like to perpetuate the myth that this is not so and that men's rights do not have the same importance as women's rights. In fact, feminists are actually paralysed from fully endorsing men's rights because of the etymology of their ideology: FEMInism as opposed to, say MENimism. Do I think we should be MENimists? Hell no! What I do think is that we should say we support equality and that it's enough to be an equalitarian who addresses both men's and women's issues equally.
"But, but Rake ... feminists already address men's issues too"
Sure, feminists can pay lip service to equality and address men's issues too. But the point is that not only is it patronising and condescending to men to be defending by an ideology that is not primarily about their needs (as distinguished by the very ideology itself: FEMInism), but feminists will always put women's needs first because it's in the name. Having a men's rights movement as well does not help matters: it just causes more bickering, fragmentation and exacerbates the quarrel between men and women. Besides, men's rights advocates already have a bad reputation because everybody just thinks they're whiners, beta males and privileged white males. Even if that's not true, the only way to have cohesive, constructive support for men's rights is with a new equalitarian movement that has both men and women working together UNDER THE SAME BANNER and is actually active in supporting both: men's and women's rights.
2. But aren't men more privileged than women?
So, the feminist counter argument to my first point is that when defending an oppressed group of peoples, historically we have always needed activism: for racial equality, the United States needed black rights movements; for defending queers, the west has needed it's LGBTQ movement and for equality of the sexes, the west has needed feminism. There is an underlying premise here and that is that women are an oppressed minority.
I disagree with this premise. Sure, 100 years ago maybe we could have argued that women were an oppressed group of peoples because they did not have the right to vote amongst other things. But in this day and age, none of this is true. Women and men both have their own separate gender issues, which makes the sexes roughly equal.
For example, women often cite wage inequalities but not only are these claims dubious but men are often made to work physically difficult, dangerous and menial blue labour type of work. Women often claim being afraid of walking the streets by themselves at night but this is dangerous for men also and men are actually more commonly victims of assault. Women complain about rape, but men are actually rape victims nearly as often as women and prison rape is something that is laughed about, even though it is so emasculating and such a devastating blow to the man's sense of masculinity. Women complain about being used for sex but actually sex is something that is supposed to benefit both genders, and men are always the ones having to chase around women, pay for dates and commit to relationships before they can have intercourse.
These are just some examples. Again, I'm not saying women do not have their own gender issues but that the problems are roughly equal and yet vocal feminists are always drawing all the attention to women's issues and if you disagree with them, you are a sexist, chauvinist pig. If women's issues are roughly equal to men (which they are), then we don't need activism. What we need is a constructive and cohesive movement such as equalitarianism.
3. But that's just western women, what about the inexplicable atrocities that happen to women in other countries
Now this is actually a reasonable argument. Both western men AND women are among some of the most privileged, entitled human beings on the planet. Western men are often more concerned with pumping iron at the gym and chasing hot women than what's happening about women's rights in India or the high cost of legal abortion in South Africa. Western women are often more concerned about their make-up and hair extensions than South African rape culture and the issue of HIV. In short, both western men AND women are highly privileged and entitled. What's safe to say, however, is that they are EQUALLY privileged and entitled. Travel to many other countries, however, and that is not the case.
In Saudi Arabia, women cannot travel anywhere without a chaperone, religious beliefs make it extremely difficult for women to drive, women must wear an abaya, or compete in sports. Which countries do you think need feminism more? The likes of Saudi Arabia or the united states of America? We can probably agree that in the west, the question of feminism, or gender issues in general are not so urgent. I just find it extremely belittling and condescending to my own gender, that our personal issues in western culture must be defended under the banner of feminism just for the sake of political correctness, rather than a genuine equal rights campaign like equalitarianism.
Conclusion: Don't be a feminist, be an equalitarian
Although the literal definition of feminism is about equality, the ideology is not etymologically rooted in equality otherwise. Feminists are condescending and dismissive of men's rights issues and when you bring up the subject, they argue that they pay lip service to men's rights therefore, we do not need to defend men's rights under the banner of an equal rights movement - equalitarianism. They also argue that we need activism to protect women's rights because women are more oppressed but that is not actually the case as I have demonstrated. The only valid argument modern feminists have to make is that we need feminism internationally but even then, there are men AND women that are suffering because of brutal regimes in other countries. Women just have it harder over there. Please don't be a feminist, be an equalitarian.
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